Education Resources

Bulk property

In chemistry, materials science, and other scientific disciplines, a bulk property of a substance is one that is independent of the amount of that substance being measured.

For instance, the mass of a substance is not a bulk property, because it depends on the amount of that substance being measured; one cubic meter of lead weighs a million times as much as a cubic centimeter of lead. However, both have the same density; thus, density is a bulk property.

Other examples of bulk properties include refractive index, concentration, half-life, elastic modulus, and tensile strength.

The concept is similar to that of per capita measurements in economics.